🎧 Prefer listening? Listen instead.
For years, I wanted an old manual prime lens.
Not because it was sharper.
Not because it was expensive.
Quite the opposite.
I wanted something slower.
Something imperfect.
Something that would make me stop for a moment before pressing the shutter.
When I finally bought one, I realised it wasn’t the lens that had changed.
It was the way I looked at the world.
The first few days were frustrating.
Manual focus sounds romantic until you actually try it.
There is no autofocus to rescue you.
No electronic viewfinder.
Just a small screen that often disappears in bright sunlight.
You think you’ve focused perfectly.
You come home.
And the sharpest part of the photograph is somewhere completely different.
At first, I thought that was a mistake.
Now I think it’s part of the photograph.
No photograph ever looks exactly the same.
Even if I stand in the same place.
The light changes.
The wind moves the grass.
The focus slips ever so slightly.
The bokeh becomes different.
And somehow…
so does the feeling.
Every photograph becomes a small surprise.
Sometimes nothing turns out the way I expected.
Sometimes something even better appears.
A reflection.
A glow.
A soft blur I never planned.
Sometimes those imperfections become the photograph itself.
Those are often the photographs I remember the most.
People sometimes ask why I don’t edit my photographs more.
The answer is simple.
Because every time I try to make them technically better, they become less familiar to me.
The colours become someone else’s colours.
The contrast becomes stronger.
The shadows become cleaner.
Everything looks more perfect.
But something quietly disappears.
The feeling.
I’d rather keep a photograph that reminds me exactly how that evening felt than create a perfect version of a moment that never really existed.
Photography, for me, isn’t about improving reality.
It’s about remembering it honestly.
I also enjoy shooting on film.
From time to time.
There is something magical about waiting for developed photographs.
I understand why people fall in love with it.
But I’m also impatient.
I like seeing the image while the memory is still fresh.
I like walking home knowing that the moment is already safely there.
Maybe that’s why an old manual lens feels like the perfect middle ground.
Slow enough to make me think.
Immediate enough to keep the memory alive.
The part I love the most isn’t perfect focus.
It’s the way old glass catches light.
The soft circles.
The unexpected glow.
The imperfections.
Sometimes the subject almost disappears.
The atmosphere doesn’t.
I’ve never chased technical perfection.
I’ve always been chasing a feeling instead.
Life was never perfectly sharp.
Some days are beautiful.
Some are quiet.
Some feel lonely.
Some are full of light.
Others slowly fade into darkness.
I don’t want my photographs to pretend otherwise.
Because life isn’t made of perfect moments.
It’s made of real ones.
Maybe that’s why I still reach for an old manual lens every time I leave the house.
Not because it’s easier.
Not because it’s better.
Because it reminds me to slow down.
And sometimes…
that’s exactly enough.
Perhaps that’s why I still choose feeling over perfection.